Labour promised if they won control of Hammersmith & Fulham Council that they would hold an emergency budget in June. Instead we got a pretty feeble “interim report” in July.

They promised £20million of additional savings and instead we were presented with a pretty dubious £4million of proposals.

Let me be clear, finding in-year savings is the right thing to do. A budget should always be a limit and not a target. In every year of the previous administration, Conservatives also started with challenging gaps to meet, always succeeding and ultimately reducing council tax by 20% over eight years.

From the start of their budget report, Labour trumpet their claim to have reduced Councillors Special Responsibility Allowances by 10%, which in reality is actually an increase in the overall spend on councilor allowances by £10,000, not to mention the 16% hike in cabinet member allowance spending. A pretty innumerate start.

Moving on, readers may remember Labour’s much parotted and absurd line about 600 stealth taxes raising £64.5million. Conservatives dispute that figure as we know Labour’s workings took into account statutory charges and other fees that still do not cover the cost of delivering services that remain subsidised.

But let’s put that to one side and take a look at what the interim budget report sets about actually doing. It removes one charge around burials at 24 hours notice that they admit will be revenue neutral because no charge has actually be raised by it yet! Where’s the bold action to marry Labour’s rhetoric to practice?

The report goes on to communications spend. Page 5 of the uncosted Labour manifesto stated 'Conservatives spent £5 million on propaganda'. More bogus numbers, as unlike the pre-2006 Labour Council who spent £400,000 of taxpayers’ money a year on HFM magazine alone, the previous Conservative administration’s communications spend was underpinned by commercial advertising.

So what do Labour propose? Of the alleged £5million spend, they are cutting £241,000, much of which is not real savings as there will be revenue loss involved. So where’s the £5million savings? It’s not there, just a figment of someone’s imagination.

Then we come to libraries. A £30,000 cut to the budget for buying books. Whilst Labour councils across the capital were shutting libraries, it was the Tri-Borough Conservative councils who kept all of ours open. Now there is a Labour council in H&F, they’re putting less books on the shelves of those libraries.

Those odd choices aside, Labour’s strategy seems to depend on banking departmental underspends now in the hope that they hold until next April and removing provision for inflation in the hope costs don’t start rising. No genuine savings. No real reforms.

Serious reform is the way forward to save the tens of millions needing to be found -principally taking tri- and bi- borough to the next level. If Labour are serious about running H&F Council, someone needs to get a grip of the numbers and develop a real plan.